choose your own adventure
by hyacinthian
Summary: there are three ways the story can end. after all, all roads do lead to the truth, don't they? august x emma.


A/N: Written pre-S2.

* * *

The story can end one of three ways:

a. Magic works. Emma stands by his bed, her father's sword in hand, and the ruby embedded in the bronze hilt glints at him like a flirtatious smile. She kneels slightly to look closer at his face, to make sure that he is real, and he will look into the face of god and remember why he's here and remember not to forget why he's here like he did the first time.

"You're alive," she whispers, and the sword sways along the line of her thigh.

He's only human – and here, laughter like the delicate noise of an oscillating chandelier. She presses her hand to his wrist, thumb along the vein, the other pressed to the ruby on the sword, and he swallows the glib remark lying on the back of his tongue: _i _am _a real boy._

"You believed," he says, voice a low rasp. The rebuilding takes time. His muscles still feel stiff in their newness; he must learn to walk again.

"I kinda had to," she says, shrugging. He grins, and his lips crack at the edges.

"No one has to believe anything. You chose to."

She looks up at him from beneath her lashes and now he can see the touch of the royal in her – the delicate curve of her cheek, the indignant wrinkle in her forehead, the indelible softness, tamped down for years to preserve some kind of iron strength – and sighs. "I had to," she repeats.

* * *

b. It isn't enough. She heads back to his room and there he is, still lying in bed, still frozen. She bites the sleeve of her jacket. She is no one's savior, was never supposed to be anyone's savior.

The curve of his palm is still supple, and she wonders what the usual response is to something like this. She's a foster kid; she's a bounty hunter; the one thing she never claimed to be was hero.

* * *

c. A world without magic. A little boy who does not love his parents, whose parents do not love him, who makes up a world where love can save such things as broken homes and broken bones. None of it is real.

With all stories, it all depends on the sort of person who's reading. Then again, it doesn't start here.

* * *

All writing is action, his first writing teacher tells him, and so it goes: over the years, all he manages to collect is a particularly impressive stack of blank paper. He lives to forget that his being alive is a process; he lives to forget, and forgets; he forgets, and everything falls apart again. It's a process, really.

He runs away from his first group home at eight, from his first foster family at eleven. It's impressive, really, a caseworker had said, peering over his file, and he'd kept his eyes cast low to the floor and swung his legs back and forth. Everything was about _motion_, and that's what caught him up, see? The swinging of the legs, the way the knee and its ligaments worked with the ankle to propel him forward, so he could walk, so the walking could become running, so that Connecticut could become Rhode Island could become Delaware. Continuous motion – the greater the distance, the more successful the attempt, the more human;

And isn't that funny? The humanity of it all?

It's like knowing the beats of a joke in sequence; skip one, and the whole thing falls apart. He tries to keep notes, he tries to remember – this is your mission, this is the goal, these are the things you have to do – but it's spring, and the baby is crying, and the other kids tell him there's a park and chocolate and what does he have to do with a baby? Simplest explanations are always the best, so he runs with it: he's human, he's a kid, he deserves to have a day in the park. The beats, the beats, the beats – how could he forget?

(Later, on a beach in Phuket with the sun beaming in his eyes and gnats swarming around the bones of his ankles, it will be that kind of mythical pain: too generalized to pinpoint, too intense to ignore; it's the kind of affliction that affects trees – the way the sickness comes from inside and starts to rot everything from the inside out. And if the problem is inside, then what can he do? He cannot cut himself open to observe the way the mold spreads along the rings; he's human, but he isn't human, and there's nothing to address that particular problem anywhere.

He can't even write about it.)

* * *

Emma is exactly as unforgiving as he expects. Oh, crudely fashioned, maybe, the way that diamonds in the rough always are – and, please, forgive the hackneyed cliches but August never promised he was a good writer, just that he wrote, just that he tried, just that he started the process – all red leather and dyed hair and hard snarl. Perfectly lupine.

He says, _can i buy you a drink? _and there is her rough-hewn cynicism, and the curl of her lip, the set of her jaw, the bright streak of lipstick across her mouth like blood.

_you know, _she says, her eyes narrowed in a show of suspicion_, you're definitely the kind of mistake i would have made when i was twenty-two_.

He grins then. _is that an invitation?_

_i'm not twenty-two anymore._

_me neither._

He has no right to complain, that's true, but they were children in the adults' war, and sending children in to fight adult battles is nothing they'd forgive here on this side. On the other side, oh, barely even questioned – not when children are sent to be shoved into ovens, or to be lost in the forest, or liabilities that can be sold to the highest bidder. Magic comes with its own price, and the price is there in the ink of the story; hard for everyone to believe, but August has learned that. Emma hasn't.

So she gets a sandwich and she pins the sheriff badge to the lapel of her jacket and she shines it, too – oh, she can deny it but he can tell when she's polished it – and maybe it gives her a thrill to finally be a part of the story, to not be chasing down bail jumpers for the sake of the check. Here, she's meant to be making a difference; here, she's sheriff; here, she's god. She brushes a stray piece of hair out of her eyes and sips at a cup of hot chocolate, and he pulls his unzipped leather jacket closer to the body.

_maybe a piece of pie to go with that?_, he says, and she arches an eyebrow.

_you seem really intent on talking to me._

_i hear you're great at dinner parties. interesting conversation._ It's a half-pitying smile, all complacency and slumped shoulders.

_i like apple._

She is her mother's daughter. _apple it is._

* * *

He's marching around outside Granny's, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and fumbling for a lighter, and she breezes out, the door bell tinkling behind her. "Didn't picture you as a smoker," she says, and he gets the feeling he would hate this town if he stayed there any longer, everyone rooting in each other's narratives like pigs with their snouts in the ground.

"I'm not," he intones, pulling the small lighter out of his pocket. "The day calls for it."

Her boots scuff against the asphalt as she approaches. She always wears boots. It's almost a character trait. "That bad, huh?"

"You have no idea."

And again, the skeptical squint. "For someone that doesn't seem to like the town very much, you don't seem to be in any hurry to leave."

He exhales, all smoke. "It helps me with my work."

"Yeah?" she says, pushing her hands into her pockets. "And what's that?"

"I'm a writer."

"You already told me that."

"It's, um, a new project," he says, flicking the ash into the street. The breeze rustles leaves in the street, and Regina passes them with a thin-lipped smile. Emma follows her path with her eyes in an impressive lack of subtlety. "Looks like you've got your own work cut out for you."

Emma sniffs, her breath fogging in the cold. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure," he says. "Want to get the coffee next time?"

She presses her lips together; the wind's drawn her cheeks pink. "Next time?"

"Well, we do seem to run into each other an awful lot."

"Yeah," she deadpans. "We do."

He shrugs, casting the rest of his cigarette into the street, and stubbing it out with his shoe. "Next time. You get the coffee."

* * *

He isn't woken with a kiss, or true love, none of that other mythic business. (Or: maybe he is, but he's too oblivious to realize; maybe he is lost in human denial, and can't really figure out what his own feelings are; maybe.) There is a sword in her hand and a pen tucked in his jacket pocket, folded paper in his wallet, and he remembers these are the things that make him a person.

His expired drivers' license from the state of Massachusetts, a wallet-sized photo of his last ex-girlfriend he never remembered to discard, half-written lines of poetry on the back of a CVS receipt for a pack of Oreos. Emma blinks twice, slowly, because she isn't used to magic, and she isn't sure if the whole thing is a lie.

Whether she remembers or not is beyond the point. She was a baby, and he failed to protect her, and he paid the price; she was a baby and what she remembers is only what she's been told; the book is the record, but even that doesn't belong to her:

She presses the back of her hand to his cheek and it's warm and his teeth stutter together when he exhales with a small laugh; oh, god, as if he could have been anything other than this.

"You're alive," she says. "I saw you—"

He tries for a grin. Everything seems to stretch; the corner of his mouth tics. "You miss me?"

She throws her body against his quickly, her hair brushing along the side of his face. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," he says. "It was me."

After all, gods aren't tested; prophets, disciples, followers – they're the ones who get the commands, who are challenged to follow through. And what could be more symbolically beautiful than that? Even the most basic writer could appreciate the poetry in his test of faith: needing to make the savior believe, needing to restore balance to the world by making a god that was unmade, and taking life away from him when he failed.

And not just life, the shadow of life – every single mistake he'd ever made, every word he'd ever written or thought, every motion of his hand, every choice – and that _is _the most important thing: choice – because puppets, by definition, are only the extension of someone else's action. The universe is never without its sense of irony, and this is just the cherry on the whole sundae. Her perfume surrounds him, and it must cling to his clothing, and she's sniffling as she pulls away, jaw tight.

"You did everything you were supposed to," he says. "I just... forgot my part in it."

There's a ghost of a smile then. "Aren't you supposed to be able to see the bigger picture?"

"Got distracted," he says.

"Well, now that things are different, you going to stick around?"

He looks up, tries to read her face. "Would you ever leave Storybrooke?"

"Don't answer a question with a question."

He doesn't respond, and she dusts the front of her jeans off with her hand. "I don't know. Maybe after all of this. With Henry." He focuses on trying to bend his fingers and straight them again. It's rougher than he anticipates. "You?"

"Maybe," he says. "Bigger adventures to be had. More people to meet."

"Sure," she says, voice low. There's a flash of hurt in there, too, somewhere, and he wonders if the right thing to do was to repent for his mistake the first time by telling her that he wouldn't leave her this time around. But this Emma is not the Emma he left behind: she knows better now, knows how to live on the streets and off them, how to distinguish good homes from bad homes, knows the system better than he does. She's smarter than he last saw her, and more wizened, and he doesn't want to take that away.

And, in case you're wondering: she is the one he'd invite to travel with him. They'd make quite a pair.

* * *

_it's weird, _she says, over hot apple cider at Granny's. _i don't know what to do. am i supposed to learn how to ride a horse or fight with a sword or something?_

He's got a piece of pie, and the tines of the fork clink softly against the plate. _you already did the last one._

_you know what i mean. it doesn't... feel right. it doesn't fit._

He sets his hand on top of hers, waits for her to pull away. It takes her a few seconds longer than it usually does. Still afraid of casting anchors.

_fits you fine_, he says. _just got to work up to it. _

* * *

The first time he kisses her, it's outside Mary Margaret's. They knock into the wall, and it's everything he thought it'd be: she's a great kisser, and her lips are soft, and she smells like leather and gunpowder, but she tastes sweet. There's a soft grunt too, coarser than a moan, but with the same general implication; oh, she's a riddle. Her fingers tug at his hair, and her hips are nudging against his.

It's indecent to wonder if this counts as some kind of prayer, but he can't help it.

The door swings open and Mary Margaret gives an indignant squeak. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Emma pulls back, her hand on his chest, flushed and breathing hard.

"We were just, uh," Emma starts, and August rubs at his eyes with his hand. "Talking."

Mary Margaret arches a brow. "Talking. Right."

"About, uh, um, a case that he's helping me with."

He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall to watch. Emma's a great lie detector, but he supposes maybe it's a page out of _those who can't do, teach_. She's awful at it – a little too defensive, stammering, looking away.

"Good night, August," Mary Margaret chirps, heading back inside her apartment, and he cringes.

"I guess I should let you go," he says, running a hand through his hair.

She laughs. "Scared of Snow White?" It's impressive, the way she's avoided calling them her parents after so many days. Then again, must be strange to step into the next day knowing that you've aged and they haven't, that they are somehow responsible for making you and leaving you alone for so many years in the world, that you carry a world. He rubs a hand along his jaw, shaking his head.

"Not Snow White."

"Prince Charming?" she says, taking another step closer.

"I can really see where your teenage rebellious streak kicked in," he says.

"I'm just a big fan of instant gratification." She gives him a quick peck on the corner of his mouth.

* * *

Or: they don't kiss. He spends weeks, months, thinking about it, the shape of her mouth, the contour of her neck, the way she'd taste. It adds up to nothing.

She busies herself with the war, and with Henry, and tries to rebuild a family. Snow White and Prince Charming, she picks up and sets down, unsure of how to act with them. They stop talking. She doesn't ask about him. The sheriff's badge gets left in the desk. The town rots away to its magical center; no one pretends otherwise.

Real boy or not, he's here. They haven't decided what he is yet.

* * *

"You're the princess," he tells her once, helping scrape down the ice off her windshield. His bike's out of commission with the weather, so she's been helping chauffeur him around. In return, he gets the fun duty of dealing with New England precipitation in the wintertime.

It's cold as shit outside, and she's got her hat and thick gloves on. He can barely make out her face. She tuts at him to keep scraping.

The cars are buried. The town is buried. Everything's dusted in about two feet of snow, and the cars have to be dug out. Amazing how the magical can fade away in the light of a bleak Northeast midwinter: even Granny is out here today, mittens on and all, furiously shoveling the path outside the restaurant.

"Don't call me that," she says. "That's not who I am."

He brushes the powder snow off the windshield with his hand. "That's pretty explicitly who you are."

"You know, if you stopped talking, you'd be done a lot faster."

"I don't need advice from you, you know," he says, and down the street, Regina's snowblower is running full steam.

"That so?" He hums. "In that case, please feel free to finish shoveling, and I'm going to head to Granny's."

All history aside, Emma's got one hell of a backbone about her.

* * *

He tells her he loves her (once, much, much later, after the war) when he's writing something mid-sentence against the margin of newspaper – a metaphor about the crushed shell of a candy apple that seems just ripe for the wastebasket in about a week – and it slips out.

The newspaper rustles, and she's still. Doesn't say anything.

"I mean it," he says.

There's a long silence, and then, she presses a kiss to the top of his head. "Me too." He sighs, fills in all the letter Os in that article on municipal waste. Takes much less time than he anticipates.

"I'm heading to the station," she says, and there's the sound of her zipping up her boots.

"Sure."

He does love her, has always loved her in his own way. They're the same stock, the two of them: sent to the real world to fend for themselves and defend a world that no longer presently existed. A lot to handle when you haven't hit puberty yet. But here, she's become even more her: ever the tough-as-nails warrior, but still compassionate enough to get on with most of the town.

She tips well when they eat at Granny's, and Ruby loves talking to her; she has stories and advice for people; she isn't as well-liked as Mary Margaret, but that's just a byproduct of the way that Emma scowls in the street, he thinks. She doesn't make herself that open to talking to people, but here they are: the two of them, still stuck in a town they know they have the power to leave and still refusing to go.

It's the anti-staying-ness of it that gets to him. They're both runners, so what the fuck is going on here? If you think this scenario is bullshit and that they would run, turn to page 97. If you think running is narrative laziness, turn to page 97. The thing you learn, coming from a war of the worlds: everything ends up leading to the same outcome, sooner or later; it's only a question of timing.

* * *

There's a period of time when they're sleeping together (not in _that _way, in the more-innocent but less-fun way) – right after the waking-up, the claiming-her-birthright, the slaying of the dragon and storming of the castle surrounded by nettles and brambles with the sword, she stumbles around Mary Margaret, packs up her things, and asks if she can stay with him for a while.

She knows everyone in the town, she says, and Mary Margaret is supposed to be her mother, and all of that is way too Freudian and weird to deal with right now. Freudian and weird has always been right up his alley, so it's only logical. There's a small loveseat, and there's the bed, and she crashes there.

He doesn't do the noble thing and insist that she take the bed – what is this, 1905? – but they switch on and off and his room starts to smell like her, and her clothes end up all over the floor, and it's like living together without any of the perks of sex. So, you know, it's _something_.

"You really are full of surprises," she says one morning over coffee. He wrinkles the corner of his newspaper.

"I'm not the one who flew the coop."

"She's not my mom," she says, taking a long sip. "It doesn't change anything."

He drums his fingers on the table, traces a groove in the wooden table with a pencil. "Think maybe you keep telling yourself that, it'll just be true?"

"This is crazy. It isn't – this isn't how the world works."

"Ah," he says, smirking. "But you forgot... magic."

She sighs, moving her dishes to the sink. "I'm getting really tired of that word."

* * *

There's an Eliot poem about the end of the world that seems now strikingly inaccurate; he jots down the lines that he remembers on old napkins and leaves them strewn about the apartment. It drives Emma a little nuts. Bounty hunter or not, she's one of the neatest people he's ever encountered, and he gets it, he does, everything having its own place, everything hidden away, or kept, or stored, or held under lock and key. Easier to spot if anything's missing. Easier to notice if anything's been touched.

She breezes in then, setting her keys on the counter. "Maybe it's time I sat down with Mary Margaret."

He raises his eyebrows. "You sure you're ready for that?"

Outside, the fog is purple again. Another side effect of the rain and the magic. "Got to do it sometime."

"You really love breaking out the battle axe for small things, don't you?"

"Please."

He wonders if she trusts him, if he's finally been able to prove that he's a loyal ally or asset. The stories never go to the support staff; they belong to the heroes. Maybe he's finally allowed to be a player in this one: not just a tool of someone else's, not just a boy trying to be someone's son, but someone with a choice.

That's the only thing that matters: the choosing.

"If it's what you want," he says.

"It is."

* * *

The story goes on. He writes a first sentence for a novel he knows he'll never finish. Emma moves out.

He keeps a record. Like a war journalist, some days there are things worth writing about, some days it's about Emma's attempts at cracking a strategy. Maybe she's a soldier this time around. She isn't used to running with other people.

She buys him a beer. "What are you, keeping tabs on my every move?"

There's a steno book peeking out of his bag, pen in his pocket. "Maybe," he says. "Got a problem with that?"

"Well, you wouldn't listen to me even if I did say something."

He shrugs. "You could always punch me in the face. Hear that works wonders."

She arches a brow and takes a sip of his beer. "That happen to you a lot?"

"I'm a popular guy. What can I say?"

"So," she hums, waving Ruby down. "Pinocchio, huh?"

"If you believe that kind of thing."

"Mm. Want a piece of pie?"

He smiles. "If you're offering."

"Wouldn't say it if I wasn't."

* * *

Emma storms the palace; Emma slays the dragon; Emma is not the person to prick her finger on a spindle and fall asleep for a thousand years – he's just here for the ride, same as anyone else.

That is, if you believe that sort of thing.


End file.
